Links

Resources for Researchers

"Perfessor" Bill Edwards

Resources, audio, biographies, and nostalgia from "Perfessor" Bill.

A Ragtime Compendium

A free index of ragtime sheet music, as well as directions to MIDI files of some titles.

James Pitt-Payne's MIDI Downloads

A very large collection of music encoded in MIDI format, including ragtime music.

Other Sheet Music Collections

Sheet Music Consortium

The Sheet Music Consortium provides tools and services that promote access to and use of online sheet music collections by scholars, students, and the general public. The Templeton Sheet Music Collection is searchable through this Consortium.

19th Century California Sheet Music

A virtual library of some 2,000 pieces of sheet music published in California between 1852 and 1900.

African American Sheet Music - Brown University

Minstrel songs, abolitionist and Civil War tunes, and pictures of African American performers are contained in this collection.

Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee University

The Center's collections contain over 60,000 pieces of sheet music dating from the late 18th century to the present.

The Duke University Library’s Historic American Sheet Music Project

The Duke University Library’s Historic American Sheet Music Project provides access to digital images of 3042 pieces from the collection, published in the United States between 1850 and 1920.

IN Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana

IN Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana is a search and discovery system for accessing sheet music from the Indiana University Lilly Library, the Indiana State Library, the Indiana State Museum, and the Indiana Historical Society.

Keffer Collection of Sheet Music, ca. 1790-1895 - University of Pennsylvania

The Keffer Collection is comprised mainly of sheet music of American popular songs and piano tunes from the nineteenth century.

The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music at Johns Hopkins University

The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music consists of over 29,000 pieces of American popular music. The collection spans the years 1780 to 1980.

Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music - Library of Congress

This collection contains more than 62,500 pieces of historical sheet music registered for copyright: more than 15,000 registered during the years 1820-1860 and more than 47,000 registered during the years 1870-1885.

Nineteenth-Century American Sheet Music Digitization Project - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The music in this collection is mainly from the three decades preceding the Civil War, and includes many "binders' collections," sheet music collected by young ladies of the time and bound specifically for them.

Performing Arts in America, 1875-1923 - New York Public Library

Sheet music, newspaper clippings, and photography enhance this collection.

Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music, ca. 1790-1980 - Smithsonian Institution

DeVincent began collecting sheet music before he was ten years old. One of, if not the, largest private sheet music collections in the U.S. before the Smithsonian acquired it, the collection encompasses nearly two centuries of American music. It is enhanced by a collection of instruments, artwork, and other music-related artifacts.

The UCLA Music Library's Archive of Popular American Music

The UCLA Music Library's Archive of Popular American Music is a research collection covering the history of popular music in the United States from 1790 to the present.

University of South Florida Collections

USF has a variety of sheet music collections, including the Carpenter Sheet Music Collection, which contains mainly late nineteenth-century sheet music.